OWL Safety Solutions

Referral fee ban due by spring

2011-10-26T19:09:00.002+01:00

[IIRSM]: Referral fees are to be banned in personal injury (PI) cases as part of the government's efforts to tackle the UK's so-called compensation culture, the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) has announced.
It believes the current arrangements - in which third parties sell PI claimants' details to lawyers for a fee - have led to high costs and an industry that pursues claimants for profit.
Last month, justice minister Jonathan Djanogly told BBC Radio 4's Today programme he hopes to include the ban in the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill currently working its way through parliament together with other compensation culture measures which build on Lord Justice Jackson's 2010 Review of Civil Litigation Costs endorsed by Lord Young in his report Common Sense, Common Safety. Djanogly expects the ban to take effect by the spring.
The government's plans would also stop defendants having to pay "success fees" to lawyers. In future the claimant will have to pay the success fee, rather than the defendant. The Association of British Insurers (ABI) welcomed the move, condemning referral fees as adding no value and encouraging "spurious and exaggerated" claims for minor injuries. It added that the ban must be "watertight".
"Banning referral fees is an important step in tackling our dysfunctional compensation system, and needs to be accompanied by a reduction in legal costs and action to tackle whiplash if honest customers are to benefit from these reforms," said ABI director general Otto Thoresen.
Shadow justice minister Andy Slaughter said the move was "strange" because there is no universal definition of what constitutes a referral fee.
Slaughter told the Financial Times: "It is also not clear how organisations such as those campaigning for people with spinal injuries and asbestos related illnesses, who refer people to experienced lawyers in return for help with funding their activities, will be able to continue their important work if all referral fees are simply outlawed."
The MoJ is considering the most appropriate way to bring in the ban.

IN THE NEWS: Pigeon Waste

2011-10-07T17:35:00.000+01:00

Medway News 'Your Views' (Thursday 6th October, 2011):

PIGEON WASTE NEEDS CLEARING
You are always printing issues regarding the regeneration in Chatham. What about printing about the filthy, disgusting thick pigeon droppings everywhere in the old Pentagon bus station.

Arriva bus company are responsible for the filth. Where are the health and safety rules?

Chatham is a dump, and the people who work in the so-called health and safety would rather prosecute Jo Public for dropping a cigarette butt, and parking fines, than prosecute Arriva, for the health hazard of the pigeon vermin.

From a group of Joe Publics who ride to Chatham each day by bus

What do you think? Leave your comments below.

Health and safety "obsession" partly to blame for UK riots, says Cameron

2011-09-24T12:14:00.000+01:00

[IIRSM]: British Prime Minister David Cameron hit out at the UK's "obsession" with health and safety recently, saying it was partly to blame for the collapse in moral values that contributed to the recent rioting across England.

Speaking in his Oxfordshire constituency, he indicated that human rights laws and health and safety rules have weakened the response to crime and will be reconsidered.

"The truth is, the interpretation of human rights legislation has exerted a chilling effect on public sector organisations, leading them to act in ways that fly in the face of common sense, offend our sense of right and wrong, and undermine responsibility."

Turning to health and safety legislation, he said: "It is exactly the same with health and safety - where regulations have often been twisted out of all recognition into a culture where the words 'health and safety' are lazily trotted out to justify all sorts of actions and regulations that damage our social fabric.

"And as we urgently review the work we're doing on the broken society, judging whether it's ambitious enough - I want to make it clear that there will be no holds barred... and that most definitely includes the human rights and health and safety culture."

Campaigners labelled David Cameron "crass and insulting" and said that his comments were "a disgraceful insult" to the 20,000-50,000 people who die in Britain each year due to employer negligence.

Hazards campaign spokeswoman Hilda Palmer said: "Cameron's linking of the recent social unrest to 'elf and safety gorn mad' is not only complete rubbish but completely crass and scraping the bottom of the daft ideas barrel."

What do you think? Another slap in the face of the true meaning of health and safety? Comment below.

Win a First Aid Kit!

2011-09-20T18:53:00.001+01:00

We're running a special competition over on our Facebook page. For every 150 likes we get, a lucky fan will get a First Aid kit! Perfect to put in the car or the kitchen.

So why not pop along and 'Like' us! It could be you!

Find us at: www.facebook.com/owlsafetysolutions

And don't forget, if your company needs a Health & Safety, Fire Safety or First Aid training or consultancy provider, why not try OWL?

Safety by the roadside

2011-07-22T18:37:00.000+01:00

I had the pleasure today of learning that one of my recent First Aid students had the chance to use her newly-acquired skills for real!

If you are local to Medway, you may know of the incident on the M2 between junctions 4 and 3 on Monday morning, in which a car ended up on its roof as a result of a collision with a heavy goods vehicle.

My delegate was driving past at the time and witnessed the event. She went to the scene and administered First Aid. Thankfully, the casualty was only shocked, and was able to exit the vehicle by themselves. The casualty was aided some distance from the over-turned vehicle, where my delegate carried out a secondary survey and kept the casualty talking.

Congratulations, and amazing to think that it was only two weeks prior to the incident that she had qualified as a First Aider!

It just goes to show, that even though the course is First Aid at Work, you can use your skills anywhere.

So why not get your staff trained? We can provide the one-day Emergency First Aid at Work course in your premises for upto 12 delegates, for just £350. Contact us for more information.

- Ralph

Supporting your training needs

2011-05-07T19:35:00.000+01:00

You'll notice that we're slowly working on the website. Your attention is drawn to the Training Section, where you can see the variety of Health & Safety training that we offer, from around £300 for upto 12 delegates.

If you don't already provide your staff with regular health & safety training (which you should be, by law), then why not check us out first? We will do our best to accommodate your needs, and our costs are very reasonable too.

Welcome to OWL

2011-05-06T20:35:00.001+01:00

Welcome to OWL Safety Solutions! This is the first news post, and hopefully everything will work okay!